Orient: May Day travel is expected to be stable with growth, self-driving tours and lower-tier cities have bright spots.

Orient released a research report stating that during the May Day holiday, air travel remained stable with a slight increase. In terms of self-driving, the overall rental car booking volume during the holiday increased by over 75% compared to the previous year. In several cities in Zhejiang, Shandong, Hunan, Hainan, Yunnan, Liaoning, Gansu, and Xinjiang, primary and secondary schools have a combined spring break and May Day holiday, creating a "golden week" of 7-8 days. The holiday catalyzed clarity, with strong certainty in the performance of the travel industry, and it is recommended to focus on leading companies in specific sectors: 1) tourist attractions sector, focusing on scarce resources of famous mountains and rivers, or those with high growth in the first quarter report. 2) Chain hotels sector: leaders that focus on light asset expansion, continued penetration, or densification. 3) National network-type business models, focusing on related OTA targets. Key points from Orient include: Air travel remained stable with a slight increase, self-driving showed significant growth In terms of air travel, DAST predicts that during the holiday, there will be nearly 16,300 flights per day, a 0.4% increase compared to 2025; with around 11.59 million air passengers, nearly 2.27 million per day, representing a 1.9% increase. The average price of domestic airline tickets (including taxes) is around 989.9 yuan, a 25.0% increase compared to 2019 and an 11.8% increase compared to 2025. In the field of self-driving, data from Shenzhou car rental shows that as of April 23, the overall rental car booking volume during the May Day holiday increased by over 75% compared to the previous year, with inter-city travel orders increasing nearly three times, and the average rental period reaching 7 days, with orders covering more than 5 days growing by 70%. Data from Tuniu also shows that reservations for self-driving tour products during the May Day holiday increased by over 30% compared to the same period last year. Provinces and cities implementing consecutive spring breaks see higher travel demands than other places In various cities in Zhejiang, Shandong, Hunan, Hainan, Yunnan, Liaoning, Gansu, Xinjiang, and other places, primary and secondary school spring breaks are combined with the May Day holiday, creating a "golden week" of 7-8 days. For example, the city of Dingxi in Gansu Province has set the spring break from May 6-9, which is combined with the Labor Day holiday and the adjacent weekend (May 10), resulting in a 10-day holiday. The combination of spring break and the May Day holiday, along with comfortable temperatures, further stimulates the enthusiasm for parent-child trips and family trips. The Tuniu "2026 May Day Travel Consumption Trend Report" shows that in cities that implement spring breaks and have consecutive holidays with the May Day holiday, the number of bookings for travel from source cities like Lishui, Yongzhou, Zibo, and Huzhou has more than tripled; while bookings from cities like Quzhou, Taizhou, Yantai, and Rizhao have more than doubled; bookings from cities like Zhoushan and Yueyang have also increased by more than 100%. Concerts and music festivals drive traffic, rapid growth in the lower-tier market On one hand, data from Tujia shows that due to concerts/music festivals, bookings of homestays in Yuxi (for the Hua Chenyu concert) and Luzhou (for the music festival) increased by 7-8 times compared to the previous year. The boy band Times Youth will hold four concerts in Guangzhou, driving a 50% increase in bookings for surrounding homestays. On the Tujia platform, during the May Day holiday, more than 60% of homestay consumers at concert locations were born after 2000 and they believe homestays are more suitable for group travel and staying with others, and are also more likely to continue the emotional gathering after the show. On the other hand, data from Qunar shows that hotel bookings in popular third-tier cities and below doubled compared to the previous year, with a more than 50% increase in flight bookings on routes from provincial capital cities to some third-tier cities and below "small airport" routes. Risk warning Macroeconomic recovery and household income may not meet expectations, or may suppress optional consumption and travel demand; industry and regulatory policy changes create uncertainties that may affect sectors such as hotels, tourist attractions, duty-free, and education; increased competition and rising costs may erode corporate profitability; market valuation fluctuations increase risks of sectoral adjustments.